Modern day automotive plants for assembling vehicle bodies and the like include a series of robots having welding units thereon that are selectably positioned by the robot to direct high amperage current to the welding head for carrying out various welding operations such as spot welds on the vehicle body or the like. Also, in conjunction with such automated lines, manual and automatic spot welding repair lines can be provided. In such repair lines, each welding gun, heretofore, has been connected to a dedicated power supply including a control panel, a power transformer and a kickless cable having a terminal on the end thereof connected by a nut and bolt to the weld gun. In some cases, such dedicated power supplies have a kickless cable with a terminal thereon configured to be connected to two weld guns. However, such arrangements require a substantial investment in dedicated control and transformer equipment in order to carry out a full range of repair operations by the use of a wide variety of specialized weld guns. The investment in such dedicated controls and power supplies for special weld guns is further accentuated since the investment is only used for a limited amount of time, e.g., in the range of 1% of the full time required to weld vehicle bodies.
Accordingly, such investment in infrequently used dedicated equipment is a cost penalty.